Deuce Ball

Spring is over!

While I was resetting the wardrobe to embrace summer, an old album fell off the shelf. The experience of flipping through paper album is quite different in a time we live. Air stuck cellophane called for all my ten fingers in action. Each photo had a context and a few memories. It was coincidence that I stepped into eighth standard and my father was given a house which had some square feet more, a front and a back yard with fence and a garage larger than required. As a family we all liked gardening and in no time we had a flower garden and a kitchen garden set. Me and my brother had our share of light fight and settled for our pie in one room. I realise we both were bad at negotiation and settled very fast. Neighbours praised our sibling attitude and parents felt great. We both felt even better just to realise later in life, negotiation is an art like dancing, drawing, sports and what not we tried our hands on.

Beyond the garden, the one place that I liked about this address of ours was the barren field beyond the fence. Liking had a reasoning. In a week’s time I concluded the immediate neighbourhood had an imbalance of gender. I was soon friendless. School library was one who supported this change gracefully. I got introduced to Srikanta, Chandranath, Subhoda, Parineeta , Devdas and many more. I had their pictures in mind, empathised their pain and pleasure, dwelled in their lives as if I was one of them. Yes, I learnt to dream as I had no option. My report cards showed good numbers in maths and science, and by chance once in a while in geography. Rest was always a challenge. World watches you even when you think it is happening the least. The days maths number got published many used to ask my score unlike those days when scores for Bengali grammar paper were out, when I knew my place in the class room. In the over packed school bag there is an invisible book called competition. There are several school of thoughts on that book and over years a humble realization was having a back bencher friend pays off on a long run.

 

The fade photo in the album had seven boys in my neighbourhood playing cricket on the barren land in front of our house, the address then. Rules of the game were as per their conveniences. Once in a while the deuce ball crossed the fences to intrude into our garden, that’s when I chanced to notice growing boys of my locality. A few that impressed forced me to repaint the pictures of the characters from the novels, my own way. They had organized a tournament once and had created a big pomp and glory around the event. I volunteered to click a shot on a cannon camera that belonged to Arpita unty, a gorgeous lady who knew the art of breaking ice.

She joined her husband who was a big shot in the town. He was a consultant of high regards. They had been touring the world and finally anchored in our township for couple of years. That’s when the tournament happened, on that barren land – the undeclared pitch that fell in line with our garage. There was an arrangement for viewers around our flower garden. Beauty commands and I who had no business in the game suddenly was seen quite associated to Arpita aunty. I became visible quite effortlessly. Like the deuce ball in the air my dreams got a facelift. In our casual talks she did realise I had no connect with the event even while I was perceived to a part of the song and dance around. It happens most of the time with many of us. You are just a fat on the muscle or man in the crowd to qualify you belong to the system.

It is often by chance you meet someone like Arpita aunty who makes you standout contextually accomplished. She was gracious enough to handhold her camera and with her nimble fingers help me capture my shutterbug moment. The game was over and I had a sense of connect. I blew the dust and lifted the transparent paper to release the air vapour blowing above the tournament photo bubbling with energy of youth. In the run of life each of them are bating for the deuce ball of their dream. Some barren lands behold treasures unbound!